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Since Gambling911.com revealed that seven sportsbooks had gotten together to share player information, everybody in the industry is talking.
Professional sports bettor Captain Jack was one of the first to report on the matter.
"The obvious problem is they will also create the definition of what a 'problem' is to them," commented pro sports bettor Captain Jack via his Twitter feed.
And Jack specifically warns of Bet365 being among the seven.
"Bet365 has a track record of using problem gambling as an excuse to exclude sharp bettors," he claims.
The group will call itself the Responsible Online Gaming Association, or ROGA.
“I’m incredibly excited to move this forward and to really do some impactful things and to really expand the knowledge through the research and to create these evidence-based best practices and to really empower players with information,” said Jennifer Shatley, executive director of ROGA.
We announced the new initiative on our LinkedIn page, and you can only imagine the type of response that emerged.
The impressions were some of the greatest we've ever seen.
Rodney Vermilio from GlobalSportsBetNetwork.com had this to offer:
"As I/We have discussed, the regulators need to step in and level the playing field.. These companies who continue to monopolize the market, only allowing participants who continue to lose money, need to stopped from doing so.... To me it feels like REVERSE insider trading....
"Some of us spent years and millions of dollars creating algorithm and statistical day trading softwares and sports betting platforms to be successful... Only to have the conglomerate sports books continually change the rules...
"In any other conventional Investment platform regulated by the government a day trading software that makes money for the traders would be fine.... If they banned those traders that made money in the conventional markets, the government would step in....
"But... in Sports Betting, they continue to allow these conglomerate sports books to change the rules to limit those that are successful... this should be legal grounds for discriminatory bias...
"Sickening, that the regulators are only causing and/or contributing to the growing "problem gambling" epidemic... "
David Fucillo, ead of Sports Betting Content for SB Nation, suggests this may not be as bad as it seems on the surface, however.
"I'm certainly not going to pretend to know for sure what intentions the group of 7 has, but one positive is that the executive director has an extensive history in RG work. She was at Caesars until 2014, but since then she's worked extensively on the non-operator side. Obviously there's always the chance her role is in name only and the operators control it, but it is someone with extensive work in RG."
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
